I used to be very anti-fashion, but then I realised there's magic in style, and how people choose to present themselves.

So while I'm not interested in following trends, I do like to keep an eye on style trail blazers, particularly when it comes to the theatre of haute couture, for example.

Many ideas for paintings, characters and stories have sprung from the world of fashion.

From the perfumed, glossy heavyweights such as Vogue or Harpers Bazaar, to more off-the-wall, edgy publications like Scene or Love, I used to hoard them all in dog-eared, paint-spattered, missing-pages piles in the corner of my studio.

These days, it's more about looking around me to see what people are up to, or stumbling over stuff on the internet. A friend, Natalia, has just sent me a link to the Iris Van Herpen collection for fall/winter 2017 – how crazy and amazing are these designs?!